Nuclear Meltdowns Expected Every 10-20 Years.

[DCal430]

A new study shows that we should expect to see Nuclear Meltdowns every 10 to 20 years based on the time frame from Chernobyl to Fukushima. This is far more often then originally estimated.

The reactor accident in Fukushima has fuelled the discussion about nuclear energy and triggered Germany’s exit from their nuclear power program. It appears that the global risk of such a catastrophe is higher than previously thought, a result of a study carried out by a research team led by Jos Lelieveld, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz: “After Fukushima, the prospect of such an incident occurring again came into question, and whether we can actually calculate the radioactive fallout using our atmospheric models.” According to the results of the study, a nuclear meltdown in one of the reactors in operation worldwide is likely to occur once in 10 to 20 years. Currently, there are 440 nuclear reactors in operation, and 60 more are planned.

http://scienceblog.com/54586/nuclear-meltdowns-200x-more-likely-than-previosuly-estimated/

 

[DCal430]

A minor flaw in the method they used though could be the factors related to Chernobyl and Fukushima are not typical of other plants. Very few nuclear plants are in areas capable of producing such large earthquakes and tsunamis, while Chernobyl design isn't used anymore. But there could be other factors that will cause meltdowns, so this flaw is minor.

 

[Soundmanred]

Predicting random events. LOL.

 

[blankslate]

Nonsense Nuclear power technicians are excellently trained and infallible and even if something does happen the danger of nuclear waste is vastly exaggerated.

 

[NeoV]

based on that timeline....

what a crock of shit

 

[rcpratt]

You call that a minor flaw? Haha.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Was the study done by McOwned? He's the only person I know of that can not only predict when an earthquake will occur but when they won't occur as well.

 

[Matthiasa]

Hmm 4 major nuclear meltdowns and 3 of them happened in the same location at basically the same time.
The sample size is far to small to really mean much of anything.

 

[zsdersw]

If I see a car with one of those iridescent color-shifting paint jobs go down my street on a Tuesday morning and then, the next week, see another one go down the street also on a Tuesday morning... I should then expect to see one every Tuesday morning.

Or so the thinking goes by the idiots who came up with this prediction.

 

[Paratus]

Well somebody answer me this who's health is being harmed more the people who live here:

Or the people who live here:

Hint: It's a trick question.

 

[ichy]

Remind me again how many people have been killed by nuclear meltdowns in the United States?

 

[KB]

Two points does not trend make. Based on their reasoning if I hit the lottery this week then I should hit the lottery every week. We hopefully learn from each disaster, retiring bad designs like chernobyl, and leanring not to put our generators in the basement like fukushima.

 

[marincounty]

Those were all old design nuclear power plants. All of those problems will be fixed in the next ones we build. I promise.

 

[thraashman]

Remind me again how many people have been killed by nuclear meltdowns in the United States?

Ah, but there's only been a few nuclear meltdowns in world history, and the US has one of them. We just happened to have it be minor in comparison to others and were able to catch it in time enough to prevent catastrophe. We also have some pretty uniquely lucky geography in the US and get very few major natural disastors on the same scale as other places.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Fourth gen reactors take care of this problem.

 

[zsdersw]

Something that anti-nuclear people fail to realize is that while nuclear power doesn't presently provide a huge chunk of America's electricity... nothing else exists that can sufficiently meet future demands.

Electricity usage isn't going to go down or even remain constant. It's going up.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Two data points? Awesome data set there

 

[gingermeggs]

Something that anti-nuclear people fail to realize is that while nuclear power doesn't presently provide a huge chunk of America's electricity... nothing else exists that can sufficiently meet future demands.

Electricity usage isn't going to go down or even remain constant. It's going up.

you need one more word "yet"

 

[herm0016]

based on these 2 data points, it will always happen in a foreign country.

 

[(sic)Klown12]

nothing else exists that can sufficiently meet future demands.

Electricity usage isn't going to go down or even remain constant. It's going up.

This is why we need a concerted effort in realizing controllable fusion. Fission is the best of what we have today, but it shouldn't be something we rely on for more than a generation.

 

[QuantumPion]

As a nuclear expert, the OP is correct, although such statistics are not really anything new. The probability of a meltdown occurring, based on the number of operating reactors, is something like once every 20 years. You can in fact predict the frequency of accidents. Feynman famously predicted the probability of the space shuttle being destroyed something like 1/100 on launch or reentry, and was proven to be precisely correct with Challenger and Colombia.

That does not mean every meltdown will be like Chernobyl though. When TMI melted down there was practically no radiation released. When Fermi 1 melted down there was no radiation release (they even repaired the reactor and restarted it some years later). Davis-Besse was a very near miss which could have lead to a meltdown (I believe a couple people went to prison for knowingly falsifying maintenance records).

Anyway, point being, nothing in life is 100% safe. But as the numbers show, Nuclear power is still orders of magnitude more safe than any other alternative currently available.

 

[QuantumPion]

This is why we need a concerted effort in realizing controllable fusion. Fission is the best of what we have today, but it shouldn't be something we rely on for more than a generation.

Sounds good to me. For the amount of money the US gov has wasted on "stimulus", they could have developed and built 300 fusion power plants and converted the US to 100% fusion power, lol. (It would still take 10-20 years at least but just money-wise speaking).

 

[wirednuts]

Sounds good to me. For the amount of money the US gov has wasted on "stimulus", they could have developed and built 300 fusion power plants and converted the US to 100% fusion power, lol. (It would still take 10-20 years at least but just money-wise speaking).

why would the government spend hard-bullied tax money on public services when they can just wait for private industry to find a profitable way?

 

[DCal430]

As a nuclear expert, the OP is correct, although such statistics are not really anything new. The probability of a meltdown occurring, based on the number of operating reactors, is something like once every 20 years. You can in fact predict the frequency of accidents. Feynman famously predicted the probability of the space shuttle being destroyed something like 1/100 on launch or reentry, and was proven to be precisely correct with Challenger and Colombia.

That does not mean every meltdown will be like Chernobyl though. When TMI melted down there was practically no radiation released. When Fermi 1 melted down there was no radiation release (they even repaired the reactor and restarted it some years later). Davis-Besse was a very near miss which could have lead to a meltdown (I believe a couple people went to prison for knowingly falsifying maintenance records).

Anyway, point being, nothing in life is 100% safe. But as the numbers show, Nuclear power is still orders of magnitude more safe than any other alternative currently available.

The study actually said their would be a meltdown on the magnitude of Fukushima to Chernobyl every 10 to 20 years. Chernobyl released around 5.2M terabecquerels and Fukushima has released 1.5M terabecquerels of radioactivity.

 

[PingviN]

Based on the timeline between 1990 and 2012, I will live forever.

Science'd